Cameron needs to tread with care

David Cameron’s Oxford gaffe is refusing to die down. Whenever I’ve called Tory MPs or other members of the Conservative family in the last few days, it has been the first subject they have wanted to raise. People are genuinely perplexed — and worried — as to why Cameron said what he said.

As Pete pointed out earlier, Bruce Anderson — the commentator who is David Cameron’s longest standing media supporter — warns that the Prime Minister is fuelling fears of government encouraged discrimination against the middle classes. Another long standing Cameroon loyalist said to me earlier, that he now worried that Cameron just felt too guilty about his own upbringing to be an effective PM.

I think these fears are, hugely, overblown. But Cameron needs to be careful. To win an election, he will need his own people — voters who feel that their lives are better because he’s been in power not the other lot.